Bronx School Employee Pleads Guilty in Scandal

By JOSEPH P. FRIED

Published: March 4, 1995

At first, the central Bronx school administrator said she would like two Rolex watches. But then she changed her mind and decided she would rather have a vacation in Puerto Rico.

"I'm really tired," said the administrator, Joan Salvatore, who worked in District 12.

The man she was speaking to, Steven Wolff, owned one company that sold office supplies to the New York City school system and worked as a salesman for another. What Ms. Salvatore did not know during those conversations in 1993 was that Mr. Wolff had already been arrested in a fraudulent supply-purchase scheme that was benefiting both of them and swindling the Board of Education. And he was secretly recording the talks under the direction of investigators for the school system.

Nor did Ms. Salvatore know when she took $1,500 in cash from Mr. Wolff -- money she told him would finance her Puerto Rico trip -- that the payment, a kickback for her in the scheme, was being videotaped, according to court papers.

Ms. Salvatore pleaded guilty yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn to embezzlement charges stemming from the purchase scam. While her profits were relatively small as swindles prosecuted in Federal Court go -- in addition to the $1,500, investigators said she received kickbacks like a 31-inch television set and video equipment -- her case offers a window on the kind of graft found in the overall investigation of which her case was part.

Officials say five current and former school administrators and a teacher from districts around the city have also been charged with corruption in the investigation into school supply purchases. Ms. Salvatore's case is the first of these to be resolved.

Court papers say that under the scheme, Ms. Salvatore and Mr. Wolff would create phony purchase orders to make it appear that the school system had ordered thousands of dollars of supplies, like folders, pens, writing pads and calendars, from Mr. Wolff's companies. But Ms. Salvatore never received the supplies, even though she would later say she had. That way, Mr. Wolff was paid by the Board of Education for the nonexistent deliveries, and Ms. Salvatore would get kickbacks from him, according to the court papers.

The inquiry is being pressed by the Special Commissioner of Investigation for the school system, Edward F. Stancik.

Investigators say the school system's $160 million annual budget for classroom and office supplies continues to be a lucrative target for corrupt employees and for the board's vendors, two of whom, including Mr. Wolff, have also been charged in the investigation.

Ms. Salvatore, 53, a teacher and administrator in the school system for 30 years, was director of early childhood education in School District 12, which encompasses East Tremont and Morris Park in the Bronx, at the time of her crimes in 1993 and 1994. A month before she was arrested last October, she had begun a one-year paid sabbatical. A Board of Education spokesman, John Beckman, said she faces dismissal from the school system. Investigators said she earns more than $50,000 a year.

Under Federal sentencing guidelines, she also faces up to 18 months in prison, said the prosecutor, Miriam Best, an assistant United States district attorney. But Ms. Salvatore has agreed to cooperate with the investigation, which could reduce her sentence.

After entering her plea in a barely audible voice, Ms. Salvatore left the courthouse free without having to post bail pending her sentencing.

According to the case file, as Ms. Salvatore took the $1,500 in cash, at the secretly videotaped meeting in Mr. Wolff's van near her Bronx office, she jokingly asked, "Is this going to be on a video?"